


saudade is a dirty liar

by Merakkli



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Link (Legend of Zelda), Body Horror, Character Study, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everyone Needs A Hug, Extremely Slow Buildup To BAMF Link, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Nonbinary Character, Other, Politely Ignoring Botw 2, References to other Zelda games, Sheik (Legend of Zelda) is a Separate Character, Slow Burn, Some Graphic Violence, Worldbuilding, Yiga Clan - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-02-23 04:37:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23005870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merakkli/pseuds/Merakkli
Summary: Link wakes up. He is alone, with no memories, learning that purpose and reason are two very different things. Everything is wrong, and everyone in Hyrule needs him to fix it. Several people invite themselves along.
Relationships: Ganondorf & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Ganondorf/Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link & Sheik (Legend of Zelda), Link/Sheik (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31





	1. Out of Water

Link wakes to the sound of a heartbeat.

The air and the water pooling around him are the same temperature and the corners of the room are buried beneath shadows, but the sounds ring clear in this dim blue circle. The pulse he hears is faint but getting stronger, reverberating around the cavern and setting the thin sheet of water alight with vibrations. Link trails his fingers through it; It’s viscous and seems to glow on its own, and little droplets scatter as he grabs at the wall to his side. His skin is lit silver in what little light the water creates, waxy and unreal against the pale stone.

This ledge should be rough, but Link feels the pressure on his wrist and nothing else. The rest is loose and disconnected, a thick sheet separating himself from the room around him. Link staggers only once as he swings his legs over the edge and tries to stand. He takes a step and is forced to stop as the room seems to move, the thin carvings etched into the floor swirling on their own. Link takes a steadying breath once they still and keeps moving.

Only the sound remains a constant as Link limps out of whatever dim light the water generates. It fades into complete darkness by the time he can press his hands against the wall, searching for something that will get him out of the room. His hand brushes against something smooth and cold and stops short.

_That is a Sheikah Slate. Take it. It will help guide you after your slumber._

Link pulls his hand back, looking around, but the dip in the ground he’d woken up in and its extensions are the only thing in the room. A great conical shape rests above it, small plates built into the heavy exterior glowing blue. He’s alone, save for that and the heartbeat around him. When Link looks down again, the area under his palm has lit up with the soft orange glow of a stylized eye, a single teardrop streaking down from the center. He looks at it and freezes, caught under its stare.

Those words—feminine, heavy with remorse, _familiar_ —echo in Link’s head, and he finds his hand moving on its own. His fingers close around a square, one, he could get his hand around with a slight strain. The clasps keeping it to the wall release it when he pulls, albeit with the reluctant hiss of many moving parts. Link turns it over in his hands, looking over the glowing insignia. It’s bled from the eye into the pedestal that had held it, a short dark cylinder that reaches his hip. The same orange light connects from several faint lines to a much brighter circle, spiraling around invisible veins in the metal in a slow, mechanical process. Link watches, slate hanging in his hands. Only when it slows and stops, fading into the ground, does he step back and raise the slate up against the darkness.

Lights snap on in a great, resounding shudder of the room, momentarily drowning out everything else. Link staggers, his hand closing around empty air at his back. Everything else instantly feels _wrong_ without something to hold, something to swing, but then the sense of danger fades and he’s alone. The sharp blue lights flicker and dim, infusing into the thick fog around him. 

The few crates in the next room are more dust and mold than boxes, but Link finds some tattered clothing in the midst of them. He puts them on, shakes off the splinters, and keeps moving. The woman’s voice is a distant drone, left behind in the former room.

_Hold the slate to the pedestal. It will show you the way._

He does. There is nothing left to do. Link hears the chalky scrape of stone against stone, and is then blinded by searing new light. 

The final room comes back to him later, as something of a memory. All he feels then is his fingers digging into shallow, flaky earth, and choking for breath that doesn’t seem to come back to him. 

There are birds singing outside. Link can hear them echoing through the cave. He’s only distantly aware of the transition from stone to brittle, dying grass, until the land tapers off to a cliff that he doesn’t quite feel. 

The land beneath him is _alive_ . The forest gleaming orange and gold and all the distant patches of land beyond it, it pulses and breathes and seems to reach out to him as if to greet an old friend. As if to say, welcome home. _We missed you_.

Link stares at it for a while. Sometime later, he brings his hand up and touches his face. It comes away dry.

The trees have faded to green by the time he moves and realizes that he isn’t alone. He feels eyes on him and turns to see a figure huddled in the crevice of a rock. There isn’t much to see of them from this distance, but he gets the impression that they’ve been waiting a long time. Link glances back at the forest below him. Then he turns away and walks down the trail towards them. 

The person is an old man, he finds, wearing tattered gear and staring up at him through the embers of a campfire. His face is obscured behind a thick beard, the skin he can see dark and leathery with age. For a few seconds they watch each other. Then the man leans back, sweeping an arm towards the ground at Link’s feet. 

“Fellow traveler,” he says, voice rough. “It’s been a long while since someone came down here.” Link sits slowly. His body still feels disjointed and wrong, and sitting is more difficult than the man makes it look. A blackened apple is in front of him, and when the man notices him staring he snorts. “Take it. Better manners than I expected—there are people out here who wouldn’t wait.

Link picks up the apple, then sets it down again. After a few more seconds, the man just sighs. 

“The slate you carry with you. Tap its screen and it will show you the way.” With that, he seems to lose interest in Link, and starts cooking another apple. Link stands uncertainly, lifting the slate to face level and touching the smooth black part of it. The eye sigil lights up, flashing briefly before expanding into a web of blue lines. A golden dot is in the middle of them, pulsing with light. The only other part of it is a little arrow that turns whenever he does. He directs himself towards the dot and is about to start walking when the man calls back to him. 

“And Link, the slate goes on your hip. Keep your hands free.”

Link keeps moving without acknowledging him, but he stops when he comes across an axe lodged in the trunk of a tree. Aware of the man’s eyes on his back, he finds a way to hook the slate onto his belt and carefully wraps both hands around the handle of the axe. It comes loose much easier than he’d anticipated, sending both him and the axe to the ground with a clatter. 

Something snorts and rustles in the grass a few yards ahead of him, and Link goes still. It doesn’t seem to help. Seconds later, it squeals and charges at him, swinging some sort of club wildly. Link staggers away, dragging the axe away. It pauses, and he gets a glimpse of manic blue eyes before his axe comes down and takes its head with it. It crumples, both head and body twitching furiously as they start rolling down the incline. The body purples and swells until it bursts into a cloud of thick smoke. Its eyes meet his again, filming over with death but so _angry_ , and then it follows. 

Link lowers his axe, staring at where it had been for a second. Then he keeps moving.

The dot on the Sheikah slate seems to lead to a mound of rocks, just at the edge of a steep wall. He hasn’t walked much farther towards it before the tree above him shakes violently and a giant glob of clear jelly drips from the branches. When Link swings his axe through it, it just parts around the metal. Two eyes fall into it with sickening plops and fix on him. Link takes a step away, then runs past it. 

Several more of the dark, angry monsters notice him and give chase. He whirls around once they’re too close to avoid and sinks his axe into one of them, throwing it to the ground before a different one knocks him down as well. The last two squeal with rage. One falls into the swing of his axe in its fury, but the other hangs back. They circle each other until Link darts forwards, but his legs are still unsteady and he falls before he can score a good hit. The monster takes advantage of it and grabs his axe, trying to pull it from his grasp. He pulls back and his arm lets out a splintering crack. Both it and the axe fall to the ground. Link picks his axe back up and swings it at the creature. He hardly notices that it dies, more focused on his detached arm. He has to pry the fingers off his axe to separate them. It doesn’t reattach when he presses it to the socket of his shoulder. Link maneuvers his axe and torn arm until they both fit under his remaining arm and aims for the pile of rocks again. 

More creatures intercept his path, these patrolling the hillsides with crude wooden bows. When Link sees them, he circles around, freezing every time they look his way. He makes it to the rocks without any fights, setting his arm and axe down on the floor once he’s as safe as he’ll get. 

The cavern is man-made; the ground is of the same material as the cave he’d woken up in, and the rocks are being held up by thick, tan pillars that form an artificial canopy above him. Despite what must be immense pressure, they’re almost completely undamaged. One of the pedestals for the Sheikah slate is in the center, with a stalactite-shaped protrusion above it. When Link puts the slate against it, something clicks and holds it in place. It spins, sinking into the pedestal with a quiet hiss. Link is about to try and pull it out when a mechanical voice makes him stop. 

“ _Please watch for falling rocks_.” 

Link looks up, but the rocks are held fast by the pillars above him. Then the ground shudders and the floor jolts up. Link staggers and collapses as it rises, hitting the ground hard before he can support himself. He can move, but the violent shaking makes him slide down whenever he tries to get back up. There’s a loud screeching sound as the rocks on top of him slide down and smash onto the ground below, but the noise is distant and comes from somewhere far beneath him.

The floor goes still with a final shuddering jerk, and Link pulls himself up using the pedestal as a crutch for his remaining arm. The room lights up with a faint blue glow despite the sunlight. The room has been raised high into the air, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to get down. The Sheikah slate buzzes and Link’s attention comes back to it as light begins pooling in the stalactite above him. He stumbles back to avoid a single drop of blue liquid that falls onto the slate’s screen, activating it and pulling up the screen where the dot and arrow, now conjoined, lie. A more detailed image fades in, mapping out the area he’s woken up in. The slate pops out of the pedestal with a pleasant noise, and Link lifts it to his face to see.

_Remember_ …

He looks up and freezes, caught by a burst of light from the horizon, below where the sun is starting to fall. He’s heard the voice before. It had told him his name in a way he can’t quite grasp.

_Try, Link, try to remember…_

Link is only aware that he’s moved towards it once the ground shakes and he’s almost thrown over the side of the room to a drop he wouldn’t survive. The light is coming from the keep of a castle, dark against the sky beyond it. 

_You have been asleep for the last 100 years._

Darkness bursts from the castle grounds, twisting until it forms a hazy shield around it. A head bursts from the shadows, animal-shaped with four great, curling tusks jutting from its snout. It bucks into the air, unhinges its jaw and howls, and Link swears he can almost hear it. 

_When the beast reaches its full power, this world will face its end._

The light in the castle swells, and the dark monster disintegrates. He can definitely hear it screaming this time. The tendrils remain, writhing around the light. 

_Hurry, Link, before it’s too late…_

The light fades, leaving him staring at the barren landscape and feeling abruptly, inexplicably, alone. 

The tower he’s on has ledges, he finds, that are just far down enough that he only has to stop for a few seconds at a time whenever he jumps from one to another. The old man is waiting for him on the ground, staring at the castle with an unreadable look. He’s holding something made of wood and cloth, half-folded in his hands. 

“Extraordinary,” he murmurs, more to himself than to Link. “All of these events at once...it is as though a long-dormant power has awoken.” He turns to Link, staring him down with one sharp gray eye. “Tell me what happened on that tower, Link.”

Link doesn’t respond. The man sighs bitterly and turns away again. 

“The atrocity you saw there is Calamity Ganon. One hundred years ago, it brought the kingdom of Hyrule to the ruin you see today.” There’s a brief period of silence while the man stares out at the castle, as though searching for something within it. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet. “It appeared without warning and destroyed all that stood in its path. Thousands of innocents were lost in its wake.” 

Link hardly notices when he turns back to him. “Tell me. Will you go to the castle?” 

There’s silence between them for a long stretch of time. Link can hear the sounds of more monsters snuffling in the grass around them. His useless arm is heavy in his hand. He shrugs, and the old man’s expression hardens to iron. 

“I had a feeling.” He turns back to the castle as though Link had never done anything. “This plateau is as isolated as Hyrule will get; the only way down has been destroyed for over a lifetime. To jump down without aid...no death could be more certain. Or more foolish.” When he looks back to Link, his face is calculated, almost cruel. “Of course, that could be avoided with this paraglider.” He lifts the thing in his hands in Link’s direction. “I have no use for it, but I’m sure a spry young...man, like yourself, would appreciate it for what lies ahead, no?” 

The old man scoffs when Link angles his head to look at it better. It doesn’t seem like it would take his weight, not when his own legs can’t, but he can see the edge of the plateau from here. The ground is obscured by a thick gray fog, but it’s clear that a drop from this height would spell his death. 

“Perhaps it will end up in your hands. If it were to be traded for a treasure, one that has recently made itself available…” He raises his hand towards a large slab of black metal jutting from the ground, glowing orange. "That shrine has awoken with the towers. Find what is within it, and the paraglider is yours." 

The old man watches him as he slides down the hillside and back into the grassy fields. More of those beasts are waiting off to the side, the only barrier between him and them a flimsy wooden wall smeared with dried silt. One of the creatures is sitting atop a watchtower, rotting bow in hand, but the barricade they've set up is too tall for it to see over and Link passes them by completely unnoticed. There's nothing else standing in the way of the shrine, though it seems that a great deal of the area around it has been flooded. What’s left of a pathway sinks into the mud as he steps on the bricks, the entire thing one long rainfall away from being completely submerged. 

The shrine has a pedestal out front. It lights up blue when Link presses the slate to it. An engraved circle with the same blue light shoots up from the ground in front of it, and blue floods into the body of the shrine. Only the top stays orange, eye glaring down at him. The walls blocking him from entering separate and swing open just as the monsters catch his scent and start squealing in anticipation of a hunt. Link steps into the shrine, but there isn’t any treasure, just the same dark walls. He jumps back as a wall of blue light flares up around him, locking him inside and starting to sink. 

It enters a new room, impossibly spacious compared to the cramped room of the shrine. It’s made of the same materials, though this has patterns of orange bulbs that flicker in the dim light. Another pedestal waits for him, alongside two sheets of metal, but there is yet again no treasure to be found, nor is there any way to move forwards. 

Link steps out from the circle once the light fades, pushes the slate onto the pedestal, and starts looking. The metal won’t move, and with only one arm he has no leverage. The slate buzzes and he picks it back up. The screen lights up without being touched, showing a small image drawn in pink. Link presses it with his thumb and nearly drops the slate when a bolt of energy shoots out of it and hooks onto one of the metal rectangles. The movement sends the metal flying away, and the magic fizzles into sparks. The disappearance of the metal leaves a cavern that Link drops into.

The rest of the shrine is simple, just moving pieces of metal until he can progress, until he comes to the final room. He breaks down a wall of rock and finds a metal disk that comes up to his hip, held up by three silver legs. It jolts when it sees Link, expanding with an ominous creaking sound and glowing bright orange. It skitters forwards too quickly for him to react, single eye flaring with blue light. A sharp trill is the only warning Link gets before a beam of light catches him in the remaining arm and throws him against the wall. He drops both his axe and his loose arm, and the one that was hit creaks dangerously when he pushes himself up. He grabs his axe, then has to drop to the ground again as another bolt of light ricochets off where his head had just been. Link gets his feet under him and runs at the robot. It scrabbles away too slowly and takes the full force of his axe where its head meets its body. 

The axe shatters. It sends both Link and the robot sliding away from each other. A shard of metal has lodged in the thing’s eye, but there’s hardly a dent in it otherwise. It staggers for a second, head swiveling before it finally lands back on Link. The blue glow starts up again, only slightly hindered by the metal, and Link reaches for a weapon that is no longer there. 

The back leg of the robot slips off the edge of the platform they're on. The beam of light hits somewhere several yards above Link, and it tumbles into the water with nothing more than the shriek of its claws on the ground. Smoke rises from where it disappeared into the water, but Link doesn't risk moving until he hears a muffled explosion. He gets to the edge just in time to watch smoke-filled bubbles and charred parts of machinery rise to the surface. 

Link moves on to the final room with only his other arm as a weapon, this one only containing a sheer blue box with a shadowy figure inside. It glows with a kind of permeable light, cool and smooth when Link presses his palm against the Sheikah insignia. The wall shatters silently into shards of light, leaving a decayed husk watching him from a few feet above him. Its skeletal grin shifts as it stares at him, disintegrating into a cascade of indigo light that floats towards Link, forming into a sphere before sinking into his chest. At first nothing feels different, but then he gets the distinct sensation of his skin suctioning to whatever lies beneath it, to a warm presence where his arm once was. He looks down at his hand and watches himself disappear into green magic.

It's dark outside the shrine, where the magic of the ancient monk has deposited him. Link drops into the grass, completely soaking through the left half of his shirt. He thinks of the robot enemy, sliding into the water, and forces himself up at the heavy thud of feet right next to him. It occurs to him only distantly that he uses both arms to stand, one healed and the other completely reattached. The old man raises the eyebrow Link can see, unimpressed. 

"It seems you've gotten your hands on a spirit orb." 

Link doesn't respond, waiting for the paraglider. The man ignores his attempt at a pointed look completely. "As I get older, I find it harder to see what exactly is before me." That one gray eye focuses fully on Link. "However, that which was once hidden from view can now be crystal clear. But...perhaps that is not true for everyone." 

Link is the one to look away first. The old man points to the slate at his hip. "These shrines and towers are connected to Hyrule Castle, as well as the Sheikah Slate there. To think that after all this time, it was hidden in a shrine with you. That must mean _something_." At around the same time, both he and the old man look out, to where the magenta tints of the fog seem to glow despite how little light the crescent moon gives off. "I haven't seen that slate in a very long time, little hero. Perhaps it was chosen for you." His voice is thin, swallowed up by the night. "The journey to that castle will be much more difficult than the few monsters you see here. That fate is certain, chosen for you as much as the slate was. Will you accept it?" 

When he turns his head, Link looks down at his hands. The monsters out on the plateau had tried to tear him apart. They’d nearly succeeded. He looks out at the castle, where the ghostly tusked animal waits, a thousand times larger than any monster here. He shrugs. The silence between them turns thick with tension. 

"There are three more shrines on this plateau. Find them, and the spirit orbs within them, and I will give you the paraglider." 

Link spins around to face him, though once he does he's unsure of what to do, how to express what he's feeling.

The old man doesn't wait for him to try. He stares at the castle for a few seconds longer, then turns and walks into the woods. "Try tapping on the tower, Link. Then hold the Sheikah Slate up. You'll find the shrines that way." 

Link watches where he'd disappeared into the forest for a long time, but he doesn't reemerge. He gives up on waiting after a few minutes, pulling the Sheikah slate up to face level and tapping on the tower symbol that the map has added. 

He comes close to dropping the slate again, watching his body disintegrate into strands of light. The only thing that stops it is that the slate itself is also travelling with him. It even vanishes before he does, and he watches his body float into the night sky.

The Sheikah Slate drops him much less ceremoniously than the monk had, and Link is almost sent sprawling off the tower. He sits up and looks at his newly healed arms, the joint that should be torn or at least scarred. There’s nothing there to ever suggest he was hurt in the first place. The smoothness is disquieting, and he raises the slate again. Link can see a campfire in the direction the old man had left, and as he swipes the screen of the slate with a finger it blinks and folds into a much more detailed image of the fire. 

He stands and circles around the tower with the slate acting as his eyes. Anything past the great plateau is obscured by fog. Easier to pick out is a second shrine, nestled in the crumbling walls of what looks to be an old complex of buildings with the tops taken off of each one. The land around it is thick with the rubble left behind. The next shrine is hidden on an outcropping behind a dangerously steep precipice. The last is directly above it, on a mountain coated with snow. Link lowers the slate and the scope closes back into the map.

All the monsters around are asleep, and he steals a bow from one and a club from another a few yards back. Once he’s out of their range, however, skeleton creatures take the place of the living. One's neck is broken and seems to be hanging on through magic and luck. The other one is missing the middle ribs of its rib cage. Their bones are fragile and smash to dust on impact with his club, but they have no pain to hinder them. Only once Link manages to knock off one's head and crush it with his foot does it blacken and explode. The second, the one with missing ribs, proves sturdier. Link winces each time a bone shatters, wondering how something with no lungs can still scream so loudly. It's a relief for them both, he's sure, when it's finally dead.

Past the skeleton monsters, there’s nothing in his path as he walks to the second shrine. Rain starts to fall out of the blue, going from a light mist to a downpour in minutes. It washes off the bone residue that coats his weapons and clothes, but it’s replaced by splatters of mud. He loses any hope of staying clean as he trips over a rock and only avoids landing face-first in the mud by twisting so his shoulder takes the brunt of the impact. Link shoves himself up and walks faster. The first shrine had been just as humid as the cave he'd woken up in, but at least it had been _dry_.

Link's thoughts grind to a halt as he comes within view of the shrine, though. There doesn't seem to be a pathway to the shrine, at least not from this angle, and a dark, hulking shape blocks his path. He can't explain to himself why, but just the shape of it fills him with dread. Dread and fear, and something in him screaming at the top of its lungs to _run_. 

Slowly and with the rough sound of metal on metal, Link watches the head of the thing turn and face him. Just like the little one before, there's nothing in the empty socket, until color sweeps into the cracks of the thing's body and concentrates in the eye. There's no orange in it, just a sickly violet that makes it look hollow. Link is blinded by the wavering light of its eye as a red circle finds him and focuses on his chest.

Link only realizes that he's thrown himself to the side, out of view of the robot, once he looks up and sees the clouds stretched out before him, not the cavernous skull shape of its face, gleaming in the rain. He _knows_ that piercing stare, and he can _feel_ it on his chest like a spiderweb crack going through his skin. 

He can feel his hands pressed against where the laser had been aimed—as if it would even _help—_ but he's numb up to his shoulders and can't get enough breath in to feel his chest rise. Link _remembers_ this, the mud coating his skin, the blade in his hand.

The heat in his chest.

His bones splitting apart.

The rain has stopped by the time Link gets his wits about him again. The memory is still seared into his eyelids, of that single eye staring him down. He probes at his chest now, but can't find any indication that any robot had ever hit him there. If the memory is real, and it feels real, how could he have survived, much less come out of it intact? 

Every inch of Link tells him that this is a bad idea, but he's trapped against a flimsy wall that will probably be coming down soon, even if the robot doesn't shoot it down. He takes a steadying breath that, if anything, only makes it worse, and darts into the open. 

There's only a split second where the robot can see him, and Link gets back behind a wall on the opposite side just as the blast of the laser blows apart where he'd been standing before. The thing seems to have recovered from its years of disuse. The squeals of its head moving have quieted to a rough, metallic hiss. Link covers his mouth and nose against the cloud of dust the laser creates, though most of the debris settles with the heavy rain. Link waits until it stops spinning around to look for him, and runs as fast as his weak legs can take him up to where the cave is. He climbs up to the top of the cave to watch the moon set. He knows somewhere inside himself that looking in the direction of the castle will only hurt more.

The shrine with a robot to guard it is right out. The next easiest to reach is likely the one at the very top of the mountain. Link stands on the top of the cave, turning to watch the horizon lighten, then goes back to where the mountain is and starts searching for a clear path up.

A little creature hiding under a rock is not what Link had in mind for the way to find 'a clear path', but it seems more familiar with the surroundings than he is. On all levels it looks like a living plant, if round and with pointy stub arms and legs, and seems just as startled by Link as he is by it. It's also completely happy to ignore the fact that Link doesn't say a word to it from the time he tips over the rock to when it decides that it will lead him to the shrine. It presses a gold droplet into his hand and pats his thumb consolingly, then waddles off to find him an easy way up the icy ridges. 

Link learns that koroks are immune to cold very quickly. It’s unaffected by the foot-deep snow, bouncing along on top of it in clouds of leaves. He also learns that they disappear into golden sparks and leaves when confronted with any danger. The wake of it vanishing distracts him to the monster barreling towards him until it sends him deep into the snow. This one is darker than the monsters scattered across the plains, colored a pallid blue rather than maroon. Link can hear its triumphant howl as he staggers to his feet, joints creaking in the frigid air. 

The creature doesn't seem content to wait for him to get back up, and Link almost goes down a second time as it rushes for him. He twists just in time and its swing goes wide, squealing as it sinks into the same snowbank Link had fallen into. He only gets in one good hit before it's up again, baring yellowed teeth at him and brandishing the old blade that must have narrowly avoided running him through. Link staggers back as it swings again, but he's forced up the mountain as it keeps attacking and cuts off to scream at him. His club making contact with its jaw shuts it up quickly enough, and it ends up scrabbling for purchase on the snow. He readies the club to knock it to the side, but the monster hardly flinches at the blow that lands hard on its ribs. Link is tossed into the snow again as the thing leaps at him, trying to shove the blade into his heart.

Link grabs the rusted steel, forcing the sword away from him. The tip snaps off in his hands, throwing the monster off balance, and Link takes the opportunity to stab it with the makeshift dagger. Dark blood coats the snow as it shrieks, though it still takes several more jabs with the metal for it to go limp and let him get back on his feet.

The korok reappears in a burst of sparks as soon as it's gone, ignorant of how Link is doubled over and speckled with blood. It just pats his leg sympathetically and sits down in the snow.

"You should be careful, Mr. Hero. The blue bokoblins are no joke!"

Link doesn’t respond. It doesn’t seem to care.

"Your friend down there might have helped, but she's so scary, I didn't want her to come along! I'm really sorry, Mr. Hero." He pauses, then nods slowly. There are no more of the blue bokoblins as the korok waddles along, Link forging through the snow behind it. It's almost welcome when a horde of the weaker red ones swoops down on him, and it's easy to tear them apart compared to their blue counterpart. He finds their abandoned camp, forgotten as soon as they'd noticed him walking up the mountain. A giant steak is being reduced to cinders over a blazing fire, and while the meat goes ignored by both Link and the korok, he warms up until it keeps moving. 

The path the korok takes is almost completely free of obstacles until it leads him to a cliff that is _crawling_ with bokoblins, one of which is blue. Link charges ahead of the korok and through the horde, hitting it hard enough to send it flying off the edge and into the lake below. The korok had stopped him before he’d tried to cross it, and he understands why now. Link watches the bokoblin flail for a second or two, its movements grinding to a halt in shuddering bursts as it freezes alive. He turns away in time to hear the explosion marking its death and picks up the sword it had dropped, spinning around and stabbing it through the head of the closest monster. Some are armed, though others hang back and try to catch him off balance with the occasional rock or snowball. Link tears a sword out of the hands of the first monster and runs to the shrine. The elevator cuts him off from them just as one swings a club at the blue light and is thrown back, already dead.

Cold water floods the shrine as the barrier slides away, soaking Link’s shoes. The pedestal waits for him, identical to the first shrine, but this time any exits to the room are cut off by a smooth wall, too tall and sleek for him to climb. He fits the Sheikah Slate into the stand and waits, then angles it at the water once it pops back out. This time a hologram unfolds, crisp blue against the dark water, of a cubic shape. When he presses the screen again, a block of ice forms so close to him it knocks the slate out of his hands and knocks one of them loose at the wrist. Link staggers back, clutching it—it works, and it doesn’t hurt, but it feels like it’s only being held together by his skin. He picks his slate back up and creates another block of ice, this time against the wall. It’s cut unevenly and adheres to the floor underneath the water, providing a suitable enough climbing surface. 

Another block of ice lifts a heavy gate like it’s nothing, and Link turns the corner straight into the path of another robot. He ducks back and draws his sword, but it’s facing away from him and doesn’t notice. He runs at it before it can properly turn, and his first stab of the sword aims too low. The blade lodges between its head and body, stunning it. He tugs out the sword and stabs it directly into its eye this time. He has to pull it out and stab it again before the light inside it flickers and dims. 

The next monk is hidden behind several more smooth walls. Link taps it and shudders as the body disintegrates, giving him the same sensation of his skin squeezing him. He lets the magic of the shrine draw him back into the biting cold. He can already hear the angry shrieks of the remaining bokoblins from a few yards below the shrine. Link tests his wrist—fully healed—and grabs at the Sheikah Slate. He taps furiously at the tower, to regroup and to get a good bearing on where the next shrine is.

As it turns out, the next shrine has vanished.

Not only the shrine, the cliff it was balanced so precariously on has completely collapsed. It’s still there, but the orange glow is hidden amongst the rubble. The korok doesn’t reappear once he drops down, but Link knows where he’s going once he circles around the shrine where the larger robots lie dormant. The few bokoblins he has to fight are red and refuse to leave their cavernous skull, giving him the upper ground for the entire fight.

A half-collapsed cabin is on the opposite corner of the clearing, covered in wildflowers and birch trees but is otherwise empty. Link heads for the shrine, which is somehow still standing upright despite the fall it's taken. He stops at its entrance, studying the doors. The ridges where they would slide open are deep and ragged, ripped more than cut. Something similar has happened to the engraved circle on the floor, what appears to be an unsuccessful attempt at digging into the part that glows blue. Once it reaches the pedestal, the markings lose any semblance of a clinical edge, slashing through the Sheikah eye and adding an oval shape above it, similar to the one that drips down beneath it. 

The pedestal still reacts to the Sheikah slate, and the doors still open, but Link can’t suppress a feeling of dread. The strikes covering the doors don't look like they've been caused by claws, but they're too neat to be caused by the fall. Something on this plateau knows how to get into these shrines but can't, but it _can_ damage them more than an avalanche of sharp rocks can. 

The interior of the shrine is different, shaken up. The pedestal works, gives him a little drawing of a lock next to the snowflake and magnet. There are several large gears to the left that control the only way across, a thin slab of rock. Save for the occasional click of the gears, though, the entire thing has ceased to move. When Link aims at the gears and presses the rune, chains shoot out from thin air and snap around them. There's no way to tell what it does here, but Link still feels a little safer as he walks across the makeshift metal bridge. 

A thin tube has been completely stopped up with stone balls bigger and wider than Link is tall, but the chute has lost the angle that would have sent the orbs hurtling towards him. Occasionally a new one will drop into the channel, roll off the side, and plummet into the darkness below. The stasis rune locks one of the falling balls in place, and Link watches with obvious awe until the chains flicker and disappear, and the ball continues its descent. There's a slight divot on the path leading to the monk where he might imagine a ball had once stood to block his path, but it's long gone by now, fallen into the void when the shrine had lost stable ground. If something terrible has happened, the monk at the end doesn’t seem to care.

Link leaves the shrine feeling more disoriented than the others, for some reason. He presses a hand to his chest, but the spirit orbs they give him don't make him look any different. His hands are strange against his skin, and they look too pale, almost segmented in the blinding afternoon light when he tries to see what's wrong with them. _What is happening_ , he thinks, swaying on his feet and sitting next to the scarred pedestal. His chest burns with phantom pain, but the image of that guardian staring him down feels more like a dream than a memory. Link looks up, back to the sagging cabin. Two koroks are standing at the roof, and one is waving at him.

Link turns away from them and stands, heading for the last shrine. He doesn't want to think about the robot right now, or the fact that he has no way to get past it. He doesn't want to think about _anything_.

He takes the route down the center, with a guardian in the middle of the room and the shrine waiting through a doorway behind it. Link readies his sword, prepared to swing for the eye, stun it, and run. He gets the impression that his hands should be shaking. A few steps in, he falters. By the time he's close enough to the robot to strike, Link has stopped completely, his blade lowering. The machine doesn't respond, despite the fact that it's staring straight at him. There's no rush of color, no sharp warning as it centers on his chest. Just nothing. 

Link hesitates to come any closer. He's already almost within arm's reach, which is much closer to one of the robots than he's comfortable with. The metal of its body is cool when he touches it, then jerks back with his sword at the ready. It still doesn't respond, the space where all the flashing violet lights should be empty and dead. 

Against his better judgement, Link looks up into its face. The robot still seems to stare at him, despite the flash of black metal embedded in its eye. Link reaches up, brushing his fingers against the shard, then grips it and pulls it out. 

The empty eye sparks, and Link darts back to where it can't see him. When he peers out to see if it's truly still alive, the same empty caverns stare back. He holds up his hand, still clutched around whatever was in its eye—the weapon that killed it.

It's a dagger, sleek and black with a silver edge. Tattered red fabric is wrapped around the handle, some of which flutters in the wind at the end of it. Between the hilt and the blade, the Sheikah insignia watches him, carved in with ragged, choppy strokes. Link tilts the knife upside down so that the sigil is right side up. It’s small and slightly damaged from the guardian’s eye, but it’s leagues above the few weapons he’s found so far. Link tucks it into his belt and walks into the shrine.

Rather than a solid wall or a metal gate, two cracked stone squares block his path. The two new abilities summon different types of bombs, both round and cubic. Link learns the hard that tapping the rune again makes the bomb explode, mostly from his head colliding with the elevator platform as the blast tosses him backwards. The room sways a little when he gets back up and summons a second bomb, this time kicking it towards the cracked stone. The wind from the explosion still ruffles his hair, and the fractured walls crumple around the bomb. When Link brushes his hair out of his face, a large clump of it comes loose in his hands. The sloping path leads to a hallway blocked on both sides by the same kind of dilapidated barriers. One is a dead end with a chest, and Link drops his other club to accommodate the blade he finds within it. The other lets him continue into a tall, wide room, with a huge blockade of the same damaged blocks. The moving platform is new, though, sliding through the air like it's balanced on a rope. Link tosses the square shaped bomb onto the side, as far as it will go without falling off, and the old stone falls apart.

The next room continues to be simple, albeit with more moving parts. The round bomb fits through a narrow chute and is shot into the air by a giant springboard. It lands neatly on the pile of rocks and blows up almost all of them. He climbs up the ladder that bridges the gap and walks on, to the final monk. 

When Link exits the shrine, he isn’t alone. The old man stands just before the circle of blue light, paraglider in his hands. Link takes a step back, but the old man doesn’t seem to notice or care. 

“You’ve gotten them all? Good. It’s time, then.” He turns away, pointing towards the desecrated temple behind them, dark and forbidding against the horizon. “Go there. If you succeed...I will be waiting for you.” The old man takes a step away from him, but rather than walk back out, past the dead robot, he goes transparent and vanishes in a twirl of cyan flame. Link stares at where he’d been for a while, then starts walking.

The only bokoblins Link sees along the way pause before they reach the interior of the temple. The interior has been completely destroyed, save for a few statues at the back of the main room. If there ever was a floor, it has been covered in a layer of broken glass and a few scattered robot parts. Their empty shells are left dangling from the windowsills, and Link can see the indentations from where their claws had scraped gashes into the cobble of the room. The plateau around him is silent, as though despite most of the roof and half of the walls being torn out, no sounds filter through them. 

Link ignores the crunching of glass under his boots, sword drawn in case one of the many guardians hanging off the walls ends up still alive. He freezes when his foot sinks into something with a chalky crack. The ribcage of the skeleton he’d stepped into—a _Hylian_ skeleton—disintegrates as he tugs his foot back out, shivering at the flash of panic looking at this corpse brings. Their skeleton is already halfway through turning to dust, and it looks to have been sped up by their head being caved in by a guardian's beam. No skin or clothing remains, but the shade of a dress has imprinted itself in the debris around them. Link takes a wary step back, but he can’t see any other skeletons.

The statue at the back of the temple is much taller than it had seemed from the front. It towers over him, an ovoid carving of a woman with wings, her hands clutched together in prayer behind the faint outlines of a billowing dress. The stone is worn away and covered in lichen, the miniature copies around her little more than lumps of stone. Regardless, the space around the carvings is free of the destruction the rest of the temple has faced. The grass beneath his feet is soft and healthy, unaffected by the ruin around it. 

Link comes within touching distance of the largest statue and freezes as it lights up. The source of the light seems to be coming from somewhere above her—whether it goes past the collapsing roof of the temple or ends above her head, Link can't tell. It sparkles in the air around them, cascading off the rock like something tangible, but when it brushes against Link's skin he doesn't feel anything. 

_You who have conquered four shrines and claimed their spirit orbs. I am the goddess Hylia._

The voice that emanates from the statue is powerful enough that it seems to rustle the grass around him. It's low and feminine, and it circles around him as though it comes from all of the stones at once. The statue looks alive suddenly, smiling down at him.

_You come to me for the offer of great power. I will grant you what you seek._

Nothing immediately changes, but now when any of this new, showering light comes close to it, it sinks into his chest like iron to a magnet. It _burns_ now, and for a second rather than the statue there's the cold, dark carapace of a guardian in front of him, but it fades as the light does and leaves Link feeling hollow where it had touched him. He looks up at the goddess’s face and sees nothing, just lifeless stone.

"So, the goddess has blessed you." 

Link spins on his heel, looking for someone who isn't there. Then, from above him—"Get up here. Quickly." His head snaps up just in time to see the last flutter of the old man's cape as he walks away from an opening in the roof. The side he'd been on is carved out in its entirety and the roof above it seems unstable at best, but Link follows where he'd seen the old man last and finds a long, rickety ladder leading to the top. It's sun-bleached and looks about as stable as the rest of the temple, there’s no other way to get up. Link climbs as quickly as he dares. 

Getting up to the roof proves it to be even more precarious than it had seemed from below. The scaffolding is peeling up, if it isn't missing entirely, and what little wood or metal is left creaks and bends under his weight. The ridge at the very top seems secure enough, though Link still gets the distinct impression that it could cave in on itself at any given moment. 

The old man is waiting for him in the steeple, surrounded by hazy blue light that makes it look like the cave he'd woken up in. He’s several feet off the level of the roof and there are a few awkward seconds where Link has to shove himself up using some collapsed stone just underneath it. One of the windows behind him is gone, the only things left of it being a few metal wires that have snapped like twigs. The rest of the glass is still intact but has clouded to the point that it is nearly impossible to see anything outside, save for the shadow of the castle against the darkening sky. 

"So, boy, you've finally made it." He seems older, more tired, than the short time since Link had last seen him. Rather than just dark his skin is ashen, so flat and unlit his face looks like wood. "Now, then...the time has come to show you who I truly am. I was...King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule, the last leader of Hyrule." The old man—the king, spreads his hand towards the castle behind him. "It is a kingdom that no longer exists."

The small area around them bursts into a blaze of light that instantly blinds Link. He throws a hand over his eyes, waiting for it to die down enough to see. 

The rags he had worn beforehand have melted away in the light. Now the thick, white beard and the wizened skin remain, but any trace of his old mantle has disappeared entirely. It's replaced by what Link can only assume is royal livery, a coat that might once have been brilliant blue emblazoned with gold threads, and an elaborate white suit that has been stained with hundred-year-old blood. The thin, golden crown on his head is bent out of shape and tarnished. 

"The Great Calamity was merciless," he says, hardly looking for any indication that Link is processing this. "It came suddenly, without warning, a century ago. It destroyed everything in its path, and I was not left alive even to see my kingdom burn around me."

The king turns towards the castle, though his eyes remain on Link. "There are people in this world capable of far worse than anything you could ever dream of. Remember that." He sighs, but his shoulders don't heave. Nothing moves, save for the silent rustling of his coat and beard. "The goddess Hylia has blessed you, Link. Whether you know it or not, you are ready to hear of what happened a hundred years ago." 

And Link hears it, hears him speak, but the sounds are foreign to his ears. The memories that surface, though, those make sense, if for the brief moments he can really see them. Images pass by fleetingly, too fast to properly see them, but Link knows like he does in a dream what they are.

The Champions of Hyrule, pilots of the Divine Beasts; his friends, allies, something more that Link doesn't quite grasp but which hurts the second it occurs to him.

They aren't by his side when he sees that guardian again, and the dead king tells him that it's real, that it happened, that yes, he had felt his own body torn to shreds before he was granted the mercy to properly die.

Princess Zelda; the one speaking to him, trapped in the castle with this Great Calamity. The king stops speaking here, and Link presses a hand to his chest, wondering if he should be gasping for breath. He finally realizes that it's not moving under his palm.

"You remember her, even now," the king mutters. His voice comes out like a growl—it's grown cold as he speaks, his face frozen over. "And here you are, as she works to restrain Calamity Ganon, calling out for your help. Doing nothing. _Choosing_ to do nothing." 

Link doesn’t know what to say to that. That he would, that he _will._ That he’s scared. His arms ache.

"My daughter's power will be exhausted soon. If that happens, there will be nothing to keep that beast from consuming all of Hyrule. Because she will be dead, and you will still be here, cowering with the koroks under their leaf piles. If only—If _only_ the Champions had been slower to their beasts. You—You, who can't even decide if he wants to deign to help the woman begging for someone to help, you are _useless_."

Of course. Princess Zelda, one of his closest friends, the last survivor of the people he would have known a hundred years before. How could he have forgotten her? The king's voice is steely, not angry, more monotone than emotional. Link isn't sure, but he thinks that makes it worse.

“You know her, even now. Even if you deny it. You see her better than you see yourself. The Sheikah risked _everything_ to bring you back, Link. They didn’t bring you here to be saved. There was nothing left of you to save. They remade you here, and damned every other innocent that might have lived in peace. I have been trapped here for a hundred years. I _watched_ those who made it past the first wave die.” Those cold gray eyes meet his. “You even look like what killed them. They died deaths that I would only wish on one person—and here he is, refusing to go and right the wrongs _he_ caused." 

The king holds out the paraglider, as though he's holding up a bokoblin's severed head. "You seem capable of following orders, at the very least. The Sheikah Elder, Impa, will tell you everything else you need to know. Her village, Kakariko Village, was spared the destruction of the Calamity. Go there first, and do what she says. She won't lead you astray." Link doesn't know how to respond, how to move. His body feels made of stone as the king drops the paraglider at his feet. "The Sheikah severed the drawbridge leading to Hyrule proper. Use this to get down." Link doesn't try to pick it up, and the king shakes his head like he's beyond all hope. "Take it, Link. You've _earned_ it. And I hope my spirit will have vanished from this plane by the time yours comes to join me. Go enjoy what little time you have left."

He's gone with a whispering breeze, blue smoke scattering past the broken window and out towards Hyrule Castle, though it dissipates in the wind. Link stretches a hand towards the paraglider, examining the lines separating his knuckles from each other. He drops to his knees, fingers tangling in the cloth and wood underneath them, and only stops when he finds a large enough shard of glass to look into.

The king is right. 

Link can’t remember what he looks like. When he tries, he sees red scales and dark feathers, feels strong hands against his back, hears a strong laugh echoing deep in his memory. Regardless, this isn’t him. His dark skin is perfect where it should be split apart. He shouldn’t have hair at all. Where his eyes might be, all Link sees is the flickering, pulsing light of a guardian's eye, only this time there's two of them and _this time_ , he’s staring into his reflection. Link still hasn’t tried to open his mouth and he's glad for it, because he doesn't think he could handle that right now. Maybe the Sheikah ran out of time on that. Maybe they just wanted to spare him from seeing a cavern in place of it, nothing inside except maybe the residual glow of those monstrosities that are his eyes.

Link wishes they had just left him to die.

He waits there all night and then into the afternoon, staring at a face—at a body—that belongs to a monster.


	2. Strike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Link meets the people of Hyrule. Things go from bad to worse.

The paraglider is harder to fold back up than the king had made it seem. Link has to drag it with him down the ruins of the temple and to the edge of the Great Plateau. He can hear the guardians whirring as he’s forced to pass close to them,  _ too close,  _ but none catch him in their sights. Despite its light build, the paraglider tracks a heavy line through the dry earth. Link doesn’t try to lift it any higher, even when the blare of a nearby hunting horn sends any sparrows in the grasses alight. 

The sudden silence of the wildlife is broken instantly by a chorus of excited squeals, the patter of the bokoblins as they start to catch up. Then one of the walls explodes outwards, any screaming drowned out by the sound of a laser firing until the only sound left at all is the remaining stone crumbling. Link doesn’t look back once.

The battered walls forming a barrier around the plateau are steep, but so fragile that easy footholds are everywhere. Link watches the grass below him, still bleached with fog, for a long time. Then he looks to the castle on the horizon and forces the paraglider fully open. 

When he finally jumps off from the wall, the force of the glider snapping into the wind comes dangerously close to tearing both of his arms out of their sockets. The short flight is wild and unstable, and Link has to drop to the ground the moment he’s certain he won’t be rendered immobile by falling from too high. The paraglider collapses with a soft thud somewhere ahead of him as he forces himself up, pulling dead grass out of his hair and clothes. He’s landed close to an unworn path, leading to a collection of ruined homes.

Hyrule proper hasn’t been spared the destruction of the plateau, but Link had been anticipating that. The ground is littered with the husks of guardians and crumpled walls where the homes used to stand, both covered in lichen and rot. Link can hear the soft snorts of bokoblins as they stalk the once-town. 

Link turns in a slow circle. Mountains encroach on all sides, though most are too far in the distance to see clearly. He pulls the Sheikah Slate from his belt and it automatically flickers on. Whatever bead of light that had guided him across the Great Plateau tower has vanished. Save for the patch of detailed map dedicated to the plateau itself, the screen is empty. 

The paraglider, no longer jammed into the awkward position the king had put it in, folds into place without any trouble when Link presses on either side of it. He uses a spare belt to help lash it to his back and aims for the closest pair of mountains. Somewhere in front of them is a thin cloud of smoke that seems controlled enough to come from a Hylian-made fire, and Link counts that as a waypoint to hit on the way there.

Link sees the blue bokoblin just as it sees him. It’s crouched just off the path, half-hidden by grass and a wagon that is barely more than burnt fabric and splintered planks of wood. It lunges too soon in its excitement, twisting in a way it shouldn’t be able to in an attempt to slam its club into the back of his head. Link has to throw himself to the ground to avoid the blow, blocking its second swing with his sword. The force of it snaps the blade in half, jarring the shattered metal only further towards his chest. Link still recovers from it before the bokoblin does, punching it in the gut with the newly blunted half of the weapon and tearing through its throat with the other. Rocks hidden beneath the dry grass dig into Link’s back as he scrambles to avoid the resulting spray of black blood, leaving both ends of the sword under the bruising corpse. 

Link follows the path more cautiously after that. Though he can hear more bokoblins within the scattered ruins, the only sign from them is the occasional squeal. He pauses as two, a red and a blue, go stumbling across the path, followed by an entirely new creature. It looks similar to a bokoblin, setting sun painting its maroon skin gold, but it's both lankier and more muscular and wielding a spiked club as long as Link is tall. The two bokoblins vanish into more ruins and the monster lets out a bellowing howl, then turns to him as though it had known he was there the whole time. 

He considers drawing the knife, but the monster lunges and swings with an empty fist before he can move. Link is thrown to the side with a crunch as whatever makes up his ribcage gives up and folds in on itself. The creature lets out another howl and stomps off in the direction of the bokoblins, leaving him for dead. Link staggers to his feet, pressing a hand to the new crater in his chest. At the next opportunity, he turns off the path in the opposite direction of the monsters.

Despite the mild incline of the hill bordering the town’s ruins, it takes longer than it should to reach the top. Link is far away enough to watch the monster charge straight through a house's exterior in pursuit of the same bokoblins as before. Several more guardian shells lie on the outskirts of the town, and one more has deactivated just as it was just crawling into the river splitting the town from the opposite mountain. A shrine is at the bottom of the hill, just under the steep dropoff he’s currently standing on.

Link has to slide down to get to it, risking more tears in his clothing in the process. The doors of the shrine slide open when he presses the Sheikah Slate to the pedestal, but he doesn't enter it yet. In the steadily increasing darkness, the light of the fire he’d seen before, from somewhere further along the road, stands out. Link leaves the shrine for the morning and follows the path towards the light in the hopes that it’s not another bokoblin camp.

As it turns out, it  _ is  _ another bokoblin camp, but Link finds a well-lit bridge before any of them can notice him. He changes direction once he sees it, leaving them behind at the riverbank. The bridge is just as untouched as the path around it, but save for a few crumbling parts of the guardrail and the weeds that have forced themselves into the stone, it’s stable.The bokoblins on the shore of the river don’t even look up when he comes close to them, walking up the steps to the main body of the bridge. While the sky to the west is still orange, it’s darkening rapidly and he can’t see the sun over the silhouette of the castle. The water, moving lazily for such a small river, ripples with faint hints of the dying light. 

Link doesn’t notice the faint tapping of metal on the stone of the bridge. He only realizes that something is beside him once it’s too late to react with any measure of grace. He flings himself back, certain that it’s bokoblin or worse, one of those gangling, muscular monsters. He hits the bridge hard on his wrists and feels them both crack, his fingertips going numb.

A hoarse, uncertain laugh brings him out of preparing for a fight, though it still takes a few moments to recognize that what had startled him was a Hylian, not a monster. This man’s face seems naturally pinched in a disapproving frown, but he’s smiling just a little as he passes his spear to his other hand and reaches down to help him up. 

“I scared you, huh, kid? I guess it’d be worse if you  _ weren’t  _ all prepped for the bokoblins running aro _—_ _ Hylia above _ !”

Link has reached out to take his hand, but he jerks it back when the Hylian staggers away like he’s been stabbed. The man makes an attempt to level the spear in an attack stance, but it clatters out of his hands as he moves and falls just to the side of Link’s boot. Link glances back at the bokoblin camp, thinking that maybe one had noticed them and has made its way up the bridge, but they’re all still accounted for. It takes another second after that to realize that he’d been aiming the spear at  _ him _ . 

Moving slowly, though it seems that the man’s only weapon had been his spear, Link holds his hands up in a gesture he hopes is peaceful. The Hylian still doesn’t move, but in the stillness Link picks up on a constant tremor going through his entire body. After a few moments of silence, he takes a small step back and risks breaking Link’s gaze to glance down at his own chest. 

“You, ah...you’re not...some sort of new guardian, are you?” Link shakes his head, leaning forwards as little as possible to nudge the spear back towards the Hylian. The man picks it up without losing eye contact, holding it in both badly shaking hands. “And, those eyes, they don’t...y’know, shoot.” 

Even though Link doesn't respond, his continued inaction seems to encourage him. He takes a few more steps back, easing his spear into a slightly more relaxed position. "Well...carry on, I guess. You're not hurt?" 

His wrists click and seem oddly loose when he lowers his hands to rub at them, but they're functional, at the very least. Link shakes his head and the man breathes out a nervous sigh. "Great. I'll be around."

The Hylian keeps walking after that, in short circles going from one side of the bridge to the other. Link watches him until he notices how the man shudders whenever he's forced to pass him, giving him the occasional nervous glance. After that, he turns back to the sunset, but what little light was left has already been smothered.

If he looks down, the ripples of the water are shaded in blue. 

"Hey, sorry. That's really far over." Link turns to where the man has stopped on one of his rounds and is now staring at him. He winces when their eyes meet and looks away soon after, but he still nudges the tip of his spear towards the guardrail of the bridge. "If you lean over any more, you'll fall. Just be careful, alright?" Link glances back at the river beneath him, then slowly steps away from the side. 

The thump of the man's bag makes him turn again. The Hylian has dropped to one knee and is rooting through the sack, standing after a few moments with a loose bundle of dark fabric in his hands. He offers it to Link with his arms outstretched, still refusing to look in his direction. When Link hesitates, he pushes it further towards him. 

"It's a hood. I'm not gonna stop you from hanging around...and honestly, I don't think I have the spine to do it anyway. But hey, the least you can do is cover your...eye things, right?" 

The fabric of the hood looks rough when Link takes it, but it feels silky, almost slippery. The pressure of the touch comes from where he might estimate his bones would be, not his skin. It takes a few minutes for Link to find the clasps and swing it around his shoulders. The man quietly offers instructions to best cover his face as he pulls the hood over his eyes. 

He seems more comfortable, at the very least, able to look at Link without flinching away. "You...weren't actually planning to jump, right?" When Link doesn't respond he chuckles nervously, walking the few steps to look over the side of the bridge with him, to where the bokoblins are settling down for the night. "Not the chatty type, I take it. Hey, makes sense." 

A long, awkward pause follows. Link is about to consider the conversation done when he speaks again. "I promised my wife I'd keep the people who came around here safe, you know. Maybe that's crazy _—_ we're clearly in the end times, it's not like I could blame anyone for thinking their life's over _—_ but I guess it's the least I can do for her. The least I could have done, after how badly I failed her."

Link glances up at him, but he isn't looking back, or at anything specific. "She liked to help people. I'll bet she would've loved to help you, and I think that's something I can honor, especially with her looking on." The Hylian finally looks back at him, chuckling again. "What say we take a little break from standing at the edge, huh?" 

The opposite side of the bridge conceals a makeshift shelter, the embers of a fire still glowing in the center of it. Link follows the Hylian with only a little hesitation, sitting where he directs him to. "Now, I don't know about your whole eye thing," he says, gesturing to his face, "but you don't look nearly old enough to be traveling this close to Central, even if you're sticking close to the Dueling Peaks. Where are you headed? And whatever you do, don't say you just came for the bridge, my heart's taken enough damage tonight." 

The mountains in the distance blend perfectly into the moonless horizon. The only way Link can distinguish them from the sky is the lack of stars as he focuses and points to them best he can. The man follows his finger to the mountains and looks back at him.

"Through the Dueling Peaks, huh? It's not what I’d call an easy journey, but if you make it through you'll get an easier trip to the last few villages Hylians can really call their own. Lurelin and Hateno. Of course, they're not particularly friendly to outsiders, but when the only other nearby option is Kakariko _—_ "

Link cuts him off by patting the ground to get his attention, ignoring the clicking his wrists make. The Hylian glances from his face to his hand and back again, then offers him a bemused smile. "You're heading for Kakariko Village, huh? Not a very common place for travelers. From all I've heard, they don't react well to Hylians passing through...or, well...guardians, of course." He waves his hand at Link, grimacing apologetically. "You've kinda got two things going against you there, but if you're certain..." Link nods, and he sighs, leaning back. "It's pretty simple. Head through the Dueling Peaks, turn left when you see the stable, and head straight along the path. It's hard to miss after that."

Link has pushed himself to his feet before the Hylian has finished speaking. He flinches back, enough to track lines in the damp soil, but Link just straightens out his hood and turns away from him, back towards the shrine. “Hey _—_ I don’t know how much of Hyrule you’ve seen recently, but be careful out there. Dueling Peaks is a safe zone compared to what you’ll find deeper into Hyrule, and it’s  _ flooded _ with octoroks, lizalfos, any other monster you can think of. And if you ever need any more directions...well, just remember to wear the hood, alright?”

Link nods, but he doesn’t look back to see if the Hylian acts any more. The bridge is silent as he crosses it, the only sound cutting through the ambiance being the snores of the long-unconscious bokoblins at the riverbank. He spares a glance to the weapons strewn carelessly about their campsite, but from the opposite end of the bridge the Hylian is still watching him, expression wary even from this distance. Link turns off the path and opens the shrine. When he leaves again, flexing his healed wrists, the Hylian has fallen asleep leaning against the cliff face. Link chooses his footfalls carefully, walking in a wide circle around him, and passes by without waking him up.

Despite the time he’d spent inside the shrine, it’s still barely dawn when Link starts attempting to cross the river. It runs fast here, and the current threatens to knock him off his feet even in knee-deep water. Link summons a block of ice close enough to touch from the Sheikah Slate, and despite how it doesn’t seem to dip far below the surface, it stands unaffected by the water. The ice still lurches violently beneath him when he tries to climb on it, but it stabilizes enough that Link can create another block a few feet away. 

It takes long enough to cross the river that the sky has lightened considerably once Link makes it to the other side, soaking wet from the spray of the river hitting the ice. The few bokoblins on the other side are still asleep inside the cavernous skull-shaped rock they’re camping out inside of. They don’t wake up as he passes them by, but the moment he starts climbing up the tower, a mass of silt and rocks slams into the ground only a few feet behind him, missing him by inches. Link gets a glimpse of a bloated, pale blue monster diving back into the water with a splash. He moves along the side of the tower until the thin bars stand between him and the monster, hooks his hands into the porous surface, and starts hauling himself up.

The sun is well over the horizon by the time Link has climbed the tower and loaded what data it has to give into the Sheikah Slate. The bokoblins beneath him have woken up and are sniffing cautiously at the mud the other creature had spat out. 

Halfway down the tower, the river monster shoots at him again. This one hits him square in the chest, knocking him clean off the platform and into the rock-filled water below. The bokoblins shriek in surprise and rage while he struggles to fix the hole cleaved into his side, but despite how they stomp and toss whatever they can find at him, none enter the shallow water. Link files that away for later and leaves without going to the shore, dodging the balls of mud and projectiles thrown by bokoblins until they either lose sight of him or give up. The path through the mountains, the one he has yet to even begin to pass, already seems to stretch on.

The river is, as the Hylian had described,  _ flooded _ with monsters, both with the same pallid blue monster from before and with giant lizards twice Link’s height and razor sharp talons. Link watches one snap a heron into the river with its tongue and risks losing more time in favor of not alerting them to his presence. 

Link can hear the chatter of the stable the Hylian had told him about long before he sees it. A few clusters of people are gathered around the outside of the building, though only a few of them turn to acknowledge him when he comes into eyeshot. Link tugs his hood further over his face, ignoring the worried shout when one of them sees the hole in his side. He heads for the nearest shrine instead. By the time he leaves it, healed save for the new gash in his clothes, the area outside the stable is empty and the sun has started to sink. 

The fields that surround the stable abruptly rise into more mountains as Link continues following the Hylian’s directions. Rather than the humid, monster-filled path the Dueling Peaks had been, this land is cool, grassy, and almost completely barren. The mountains surrounding the path are so narrow that only bokoblins could likely get in, much less fight. No Hylians cross his path, the only additional sound being the clicking of insects. The path broadens in small increments, the ground beneath Link’s feet becoming increasingly well-worn, until the mountains part around a spiralling dip in the earth. 

Kakariko village is quiet in the late evening, the houses that accentuate the landscape all dimly lit from within. The few people still outside _—_ all with white hair _—_ all turn to him with a glare until they look down and see the slate on his hip, the glow much brighter in the fading light. After that, half of them stare blankly after him. The other half turn and walk away. No one intercepts him until he reaches the center of the village. Link’s goalpoint, Impa, must live in the biggest house in the village. He still only barely manages to head towards the stairs, at which point he stops just in time to avoid a blade leveled just in front of his face.

“Hylian traveller.” The Sheikah holding the sword lowers it, but only slightly. Link takes a step back, but a second Sheikah, this one much larger and more muscular, has appeared behind him and he only succeeds in bumping into him. “Perhaps you are  _ somehow _ not aware, but we are not accepting anyone from outside our village at this time.” 

Link nods, unsure of what else to do. When he tries to back up again, though, the two Sheikah keep him in place. 

“That is something only someone very far from here would not know,” the second Sheikah rumbles, “and I’ve had enough of this dance for a lifetime. If you are a Yiga, show yourself now and we’ll make it quick.” He draws his blade as well and Link stumbles away from them, pulling the Sheikah slate from his belt and brandishing it at them like a weapon he doesn’t have. 

Both Sheikah fall silent and still, and the bulkier of the two pales considerably. Link taking another step back breaks them out of their reverie. They both scramble to sheathe their swords, stammering over apologies. 

“Forgive me, Sir Hero _—_ Master Link, is it not? If we had known _—_ forgive us for being so presumptuous _—_ ” 

The second Sheikah cuts the first off with a sharp hand wave. “Master Link, you must be here for an audience with Impa. She will be...she will be  _ delighted  _ to see you have arrived. I apologize for our wariness, but please understand we must take caution in these uncertain times.” He turns fully to Link, dark eyes almost pleading, and bows deeply. “Lady Impa is up these stairs. You are free to enter.”

Neither Sheikah looks at Link as he slowly steps past them and up the stairs. It’s the first house he’s seen up close that’s not in ruins, the stairs and wooden porch neatly swept. 

The door to Impa’s house is unlocked, swinging open at only the slightest pressure from Link. It opens into a spacious, dim room. A young woman kneeling at the foot of some sort of altar squeaks in fright, whipping around to look at him and freezing in place when she does. And on top of the altar…

Link knows her, knows her like he knew the voice on the Great Plateau. He knows, in some dreamlike fashion, the clinks of the metal attached to her wide-brimmed hat, the pale hair so thin it’s translucent, the crimson of her eyes. A Sheikah _—_ a  _ pure blooded _ Sheikah _—_ but the thought is gone before Link can comprehend it. He knows that she isn’t supposed to look so  _ old _ . She looks up and offers him a smile that’s more of a smirk, and he stops only a step or two into the doorway. 

“My, my, so you’ve finally arrived.” She nods once to the woman in front of her, and she hurries upstairs with more than one glance behind her at Link. “It has been quite some time, Link. After all these years...you do still remember me, don’t you?”

Link’s only response is to walk further into the room, doors swinging shut behind him. Impa watches him for a few seconds, looking him over. When Link still doesn’t respond, she sighs quietly. “I hope the guards did not give you much trouble. Kakariko village has been on a severe lockdown for several months now, following activity from the Yiga.” She pauses, then laughs. “But that is a conversation for later, I see! Take off your hood, Courageous One, let me see you again.” 

Link hesitates, but the glint in her eyes says she won’t accept him refusing. The glow of his eyes is far from hidden in the darkness of the room, anyway. Impa is silent as he lowers the hood, her face giving nothing away until Link breaks eye contact.

“My sister has done some work on you, I see. She always was so dramatic with her creations.” Link’s hands freeze where he’d been adjusting the folds of the hood. Impa only laughs, harder than the first time, when he looks up at her again. It isn’t a happy one. “I have not seen you since several days before the Calamity broke free. I know only what my sister has told me of your fall one hundred years ago. Forgive me if I cannot answer every question you have.” 

When Link walks closer, Impa chuckles and reaches out a withered hand to brush against his hood. “I don’t need to see your eyes, Courageous One. I can tell just from the way you stand that you do not remember me. Perhaps, after everything that has happened, that is more of a blessing than a curse...you and I were never close, though that was my fault more than yours.” she shakes her head, smiling more genuinely this time. “Past emotions are relegated only to just that, the past. Whatever compelled me to see you so poorly then is gone now, I can feel it _—_ and you didn’t come here for my sentiments. Tell me, do you know yet of the events that led to the fall of you and your champions?”

Link starts to nod, but he stops before the motion is complete. Impa tilts her head to the side, folding her hands back into her lap. “You are as silent as ever...but very well. I will tell you what I can.”

“One hundred years ago, the kingdom of Hyrule was left in ruins by Calamity Ganon. In the wake of the destruction, Princess Zelda’s only wish was to put you into a sacred slumber.” Impa stops, shaking her head sadly. “She considered it her death wish; for you to live again, to defeat Calamity Ganon when you were finally healed, before she went to face him herself and seal him for as long as she could. Her wish was never fulfilled.” 

Impa looks away, then back to Link with only more conviction in her eyes. “What the tapestries of ten thousand years ago say is that the guardians were a major force of good in the world. They, along with the champions of the four Divine Beasts, were instrumental in taking Hyrule back from the clutches of Ganon. This time...they turned against us, subjugated through the ancient evils stored within the Calamity. You fought bravely to protect the princess, Courageous One, but against an army of machines built to kill...even your power had no hope of outlasting them. They tore you to shreds.” 

“I must apologize for what we’ve done to you, Link. Even if my sister could have kept you alive, even if we could have given you your real body back...I cannot forget the look in her eyes when she reported back to me. I fully believed her when she said that there wasn’t enough of you to save, that if she could have, it would have been a mercy not to. Creating a body for you, based off of your real one, was her only option”

The metal of her hat clinks as she bows her head. “Forgive me, most of all, for laying this burden on you once again. Even in death, your journey is not over yet. The princess’s life is confirmed through Calamity Ganon’s lack of freedom, but as we speak I can feel her restraints on him fade. She  _ loved  _ you, Link, loved you enough to sacrifice herself, to attempt anything that might bring you back to her. Please tell me _—_ will you seek the method to free her in return?”

Link can see the king, somewhere in his mind’s eye. He shakes it away and nods, the movement slight and jerky, then straightens and nods again. 

The light glints oddly in Impa’s eyes when she smiles. 

“Then sit for a while, and I will tell you all you need to know about the tasks that lie ahead.”

It has fully transitioned to night by the time Link leaves, the village pitch black save for a cheerily crackling fire in the center of the vacant space just before Impa’s house. When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, only the larger of the Sheikah guards remains. He startles when he sees Link, clasping his hands together and bowing curtly to Link. 

“Master Link, good evening,” he says quickly, standing straight again. Link nods his acknowledgement and passes him by, walking to the North where he can see Hyrule Castle from between the mountains. 

The precipice below him is blocked off by a wooden fence, the land underneath barely visible in the darkness. In the distance, several hundreds of yards away, he can see the dim orange and blue lights of a guardian, stalking a patch of wetlands in small circles. 

And to the west and the east, a giant mountain spitting flame and an entire range of snowy mountains respectively, Link can see them. Two of the four Divine Beasts. One modeled after a bird, the other a lizard, both terrorizing the villages that had settled below them. They’re bathed in a sickly violet light, visible even from this distance.

At least Impa had given him directions. The closest beast isn’t visible from here, but it’s only a day or two’s worth of travel in place of the several it will take to reach the rest. Link  _ finally  _ knows where to go. 

Link is walking back along the path, tugging his hood back up as he prepares to leave the village, when the guard stops him again. 

“Master Link?” When he turns, the guard recoils as their eyes meet, but he doesn’t look away. “My apologies for the interruption, sir Hero...but it is quite late, so please consider spending the night at the inn. Us Sheikah could not bear the disgrace if you were to be injured by a stal creature so soon after leaving us.” Link shakes his head at him, glancing to the path that leads to the woods. Dorian’s entire body seems to tighten. “If you don’t have the money to stay at the inn, I would be happy to offer my home to you.” When Link just tilts his head, he shifts nervously. “Don’t feel obligated to, of course, but...well, you are the hero of Hyrule. I am willing to do all I can to provide you comfort before your...before your departure.” He pauses, then sighs. “Also, my daughters would love the company.” 

Link nods a few seconds later, and all the tension in Dorian deflates instantly. He offers a weary smile, bringing a hand around Link’s shoulders but never touching him. The short walk through the village doesn’t show Link much more of it, the pathways empty of any people and most houses completely dark. Dorian leads him to one of the few houses still lit up, opening the door for him. 

Two young girls are waiting curled up on a small couch. They pause when Link is the first to walk in, but quickly squeal and throw themselves at Dorian once he follows, both talking at once about their day, the various recipes they’ve learned and the games they’ve played. Link waits for them to stop until Dorian, brought to his knees by his children, quiets them down and gestures towards him.

“This is Link,” he says, voice gentle and warm, a far cry from how tight it had been mere seconds before. “He’s our guest tonight. Will you introduce yourselves?” 

The two girls stare at Link for a few moments, murky red eyes looking him up and down. Link is about to step back and raise his hands, to indicate somehow that they don’t have to do anything, and then both of them leap for him instead. His unsteady body is knocked down hard by their combined forces. Dorian pulls the younger one off of him and holds her against his chest, stammering apologies until Link touches his own face and realizes he’s smiling. He hadn’t realized he could. 

When Link finally takes his hood off, almost half an hour after arriving the older child is instantly enamored with his eyes. She clings to his side even after Dorian asks if she wants to help make dinner, something he jokes that she never passes up. She spends her time tonight patting gently at his face and telling him convoluted instructions on how to make honey candy for when he’s out in the wilderness. 

“You’ll have to forgive her,” Dorian calls from somewhere inside the kitchen, peering out to face him just as the girl starts toying with one of the locks of hair that frame his face. “They’re far too young to leave the village, much less travel far enough away from home to see a guardian, and we stopped using what few ancient weapons we have long ago.” He pauses as she tugs too hard on his hair and pulls away with her hands covered in golden strands. She looks from herself to him, eyes round with shock, then bursts into tears, clutching his hair to her chest. Dorian sighs and walks over, putting his hands on her little shoulders. “They’re also… still quite fragile, after the death of their mother,” he murmurs, picking her up enough for her to get her feet beneath her. “Come, Koko, Cottla needs your help with the carrots.”

No one questions it when Link doesn’t eat with them despite the plate of food he’s offered. Koko, her face still red and puffy, continues to insist that she sit next to him. Dorian looks at her with a soft kind of sadness before he stands up and pushes his plate away from himself. 

“I have some business outside the village,” he says, strapping his sword to his side. “You wouldn’t mind caring for my girls for the night? All they need now is a place to sleep, it shouldn’t be too difficult.” Link looks over both children, the youngest already yawning into her food, and nods. Dorian reaches out like he’s going to put a hand on his head, but stops midway through and draws it back. When he smiles, it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Forgive me, Master Link,” he murmurs, and closes the door behind him. 

He only comes back once it’s late into the night, closer to morning than midnight. Link opens his eyes from where he hasn’t quite been sleeping, still unsure if he even can. He lights up the pitch black house blue, but Koko and Cottla, sleeping wrapped in his arms like they’d insisted, don’t wake up. Dorian doesn’t look in his direction.

“It was the Yiga Clan that killed their mother,” He says, voice soft. “A group of Sheikah that split off from our tribe long ago. They will do anything for control, even kill one of their own. They are cunning and dangerous, Master Link. No matter how well-prepared you are, beware the eye of the Yiga.”

There is silence for a long while after that. Dorian stands perfectly still, hand still resting on the latch to the door.

“There is a blade, a shield, a bow, and some new armor by the door,” he sighs, bowing his head. “Take them with you when you leave. It was an honor to meet you, Master Link. I bid you...I _—_ I bid you...” He trails off, and Link can see the tension through his entire body despite the lack of light. What little comes from his own eyes wavers when Link nods in his direction. Dorian walks into a separate room without responding or finishing his sentence.

It’s just barely starting to lighten outside when Link untangles himself from the two children and arms himself with what Dorian has left out for him, a blade and bow similar to the one he and the other guard had been carrying, and an oddly shaped shield with the Sheikah emblem etched in gold leaf. He’s included a kind of leather armor and new clothing to go with it. It’s a complicated pile of fabrics to sort out, likely cheap but worth more than gold compared to what little clothing he found and promptly tore up on the Great Plateau. Neither child wakes up as he changes clothes and straps on the armor and weapons, though the rustle of them stirring follows him as he leaves.

The village is only just starting to wake up when Link steps outside, tucking the knife from the Plateau away into one of the many pockets in his new clothes. He’s unused to the weight of the shield and bow, paired with the new blade, on his back, and unsure if he can even use them properly. A shrine waits on top of the mountain overlooking Kakariko. It contains a miniature guardian similar to the ones in the shrines at the Plateau, though this time armed with a sword and shield made out of pure blue light. The sheikah-made blade holds true even as Link slams it repeatedly into the guardian, leaving it to collapse in a heap of blue sparks as he claims the spirit orb from the monk.

Link passes through the forest separating Kakariko Village from the mountain pass with few issues, startling only birds and deer. The forest itself is bright with luminescent flowers, lighting the woods up in a pale blue so strong it’s hard to notice how his eyes leave a similar glow. It feels almost like home, like the one  _ safe _ place he’s been so far. When the trees and flowers fade back into a bare, mountainous path, Link looks back more than once. 

The trail along the mountain narrows slowly until it opens into a large clearing, splitting on either side into two separate paths. The view ahead is blocked by towering mountains everywhere else. Link pulls the Sheikah Slate off of his belt, flipping the screen to check what part of the map Impa had directed him towards. He’s about to choose which path to take when a voice stops him.

“Ah! ‘Hoy, stranger!” A young Hylian woman waits for him in the tall grass to the side of the cliffs, waving casually. She grins when she notices Link has turned to her, leaning back against the rocky cliff face. “Come on over, don’t be shy!” 

Her smile softens into something more careful as Link comes closer, shifting her weight to one side and pulling a curl of blonde hair between her fingers. “You’re a Hylian too, right? I thought I would be the only one out here past the stables.” 

A glance at the diverging roads shows no signs of use from either side, even by just one person. When Link looks back towards the forest, his footprints are accompanied by a much deeper pair. The woman’s laugh hitches, then returns full force as she waves her hand to get his attention back.

“Come on, don’t look like that _—_ everyone knows we’re not allowed in the Sheikah village right now, right? These mountains have gotten me all twisted up, I guess. Believe me, I wouldn’t be here if I could, I hear there’s hundreds of monsters in these parts. But look at all your weapons! You can protect me, can’t you?” Her face lights up when he nods. “Oh, good! No one comes out here anymore, you know. It’s hard to believe I found someone at all.” She has to lean down a little to catch both of his hands in her own. They’re trembling so hard Link feels it all throughout his arms. When he looks back into her face, though, her expression stays fixed in a smile. 

“Do you know why Kakariko’s closed off?” She grins harder as she pulls away from Link, tilting her head playfully. “They say it’s because a bunch of Sheikah keep trying to disguise themselves to get in. Isn’t that kind of silly?” Her eyes don’t seem to match the light as she steps into a patch of it, darkening into a color that isn’t quite blue. When her gaze meets Link’s, she either somehow doesn’t notice the nature of his eyes or doesn’t care. “I mean, what would they do if one  _ did  _ break in? They’re less than nothing compared to the Yiga Clan.”

Link steps back, hand going to his sword. She matches the distance between them perfectly. The color of her hair is fading slowly from the roots down, from blonde to a shade of dark red. “Aw, did they already tell you about them? I was hoping I’d get to do that part myself.” The woman sighs, flipping some loose hair behind her shoulder. “I had a speech and everything. ‘ _Why don’t you join the Yiga Clan?’_ _Gods_ , that’s so stupid. But if you know about us, you know about this, right?” Her eyes slide back to him, expression gone sly, and snaps. A sickle bursts into her hand with a flash of red light and the flutter of paper charms. Any curls vanish from her hair, leaving it silken and the color of blood. “Haven’t gotten to hold one of these in a while. You’ll make it easy for me, won’t you?” 

She turns to Link, something in her expression relaxing when she sees his face.

“I like this part more than I expected. The fear on your face…and once I bring your body back, I’ll be seeing it a lot more.” She grins, more of a snarl, one last time. Twirls the sickle once. When she speaks next, her voice has twisted from sweet to something warped, deeper, bubbling up as though she’s underwater. “Your purpose is to be helpful, isn’t it, o hero of Hyrule? I’ve got one last request for you: stay still.”

The air around Link ripples as the woman explodes in a burst of crimson light, replaced by a figure cloaked in red with a bone-white mask. He staggers back, drawing the sword but unable to get the shield off his back before the assassin is on him and swinging their scythe. He blocks the strike with his sword, jarred to the side by the force of their collision. The Yiga barks out a sharp laugh and vanishes. Link stumbles back, looking around the small clearing, but there aren’t any spaces that would offer an advantage. In a puff of smoke the Yiga is far too close behind him, blade already swinging. Link whips around, finally unbuckling his shield and catching their sickle in the side of it, but they wrench away before his sword can connect with them. 

They barely wait more than a second, lunging forward and this time twisting around the shield when Link tries to block them. Their swing comes up too short, not enough to cut into skin, but it rips open the leather armor covering his chest. Link brings his sword around too clumsily, slamming the blunt side of the blade into their head. They stagger with a broken gasp of pain, hand not holding the sickle coming up to press against their face.

Despite the situation, Link freezes. They recover faster than he expects, moving their hands in a way that leaves the air around them thrumming with strands of bright red energy. When they vanish next, Link steps back slowly with his blade at the ready once more. The Yiga returns in a flash of light, sickle tearing into the ground where he’d stood. Link takes the opportunity to try and hit them again, but they spring to their feet and knock his blade to the side with a crack too loud to be just metal colliding. When Link looks down, he finds a sizable slice of metal missing from the base of the eightfold blade.

The Yiga lets out a softer laugh this time, the sound almost more threatening than any other they’ve made. They lunge again, and when Link raises his shield they just slam it out of the way. Their sickle hooks around Link’s sword and twists, hard. 

Link’s wrist cracks and all sensation vanishes instantly. The blade tears out of his grip, clattering to the ground, and a well-placed stomp from the Yiga snaps it at the break.

“Their stuff’s still shit, I see,” they say with a sharp, cruel laugh. “What now,  _ hero _ ?”

They lunge without waiting for a reaction, and the sickle comes down around Link’s shoulder. Instinct surges up in him and Link finds himself shoving his weight  _ into  _ them instead of away, his functional hand closing around the dagger tucked away. The footsoldier grunts as he disrupts their balance, then  _ screams _ when Link slashes the knife across the plane of their upper chest. It doesn’t have the range he expects it to and his swing goes too short, but it still tears through their skin. They crumple and Link tugs the Sheikah Slate off his belt best he can, just barely getting the map up before they’ve recovered and slam him to the ground. The slate is knocked out of his hands, tumbling into the grass too far away to reach easily. 

The Yiga forces him onto his back, blood dripping onto his chest as they bear down with their sickle. Link catches it on the knife, trying ineffectively to push them back.

He can feel it when the Yiga sees the carved symbol on the hilt of the knife. The force on Link lessens as they jerk back in something that might be shock. 

“You _—_ how did _—_ how did you get that?” Their voice is quiet, still deeper than their persona’s. When he doesn’t respond, they shove harder at him with their weapon as though they’ve forgotten they’re supposed to be fighting. “How did you..! You  _ thief— _ !”

Whatever the knife means to them, it also means that they’re distracted. Link throws his legs up and kicks them hard in the ribs, forcing them off with a shriek. They stagger back and Link lunges for his slate. The map is still open, but Kakariko is too close to be safe _—_ he hears the footsoldier regaining their breath and the scrape as they pick their weapon back up _—_

He presses at random and hears their cry of frustration go distant.

The slate’s magic is just as unforgiving with him as it has always been, and Link doesn’t have the strength to reorient himself. He hits the glossy floor of the tower hard, finds himself staring back up at the tops of the Dueling Peaks. Link picks himself up and waits for a few minutes before he risks looking over the edge of the tower. No one waits for him below save for the monsters that were already there.

Link still can’t shake the feeling that he’s being followed as he climbs down the tower, gauging the best route to go to Zora’s Domain now that the Yiga’s presence has created such an insurmountable blockade. He heads in the opposite direction of the Dueling Peaks this time, taking the longer route to the Domain, with one last glance behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised myself I'd have this chapter done by March. Then Covid shut down my favorite (see:only) writing spot and took my motivation with it. I have nothing more to say for myself.
> 
> By the by, don't worry about that footsoldier. They aren't important at all.

**Author's Note:**

> ;)


End file.
